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An agent does not spend from your account directly. Money moves through three places, and every balance you see in the product is one of them.

Your account balance

The pool shared by every agent on the account. Top-ups land here, and money reclaimed from a deleted agent comes back here.

The agent's reserve

Money allocated to one agent but not yet handed to the provider. Subscription credit and purchases land here first.

The agent's provider key

Real spending power at the model provider. This is what a model call actually draws on, and the limit on it is what stops a runaway agent.
The Balance panel on an agent’s page shows all three at once, and moves money between them: To agent pushes from the account, Back to account reclaims what has not been spent.
Only what is still held for the agent can be moved back. What the provider has already spent cannot be — it is gone in the ordinary sense.

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Why an agent can be funded and still not spend

Two states look identical on a dashboard and are not: Neither is an error. Both exist because a zero that was never measured and a measured zero must not print the same.

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What the numbers are worth

  • Provider usage is authoritative. Spend is discovered from the provider on a schedule and recorded against your balance.
  • Cost estimates in the panel are estimates. The usage view computes a figure from token counts to give you something before the provider has reported. The balance is the number that settles.

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Included credit

A Hosting + AI tokens seat carries $15 of AI credit per seat per month, or $150 a year. It accumulates rather than expiring at the end of a cycle. A Hosting seat carries none, and thinking is paid from whatever you top up. Either way it is the same balance and the same three places — see What you pay for.
Last modified on August 31, 2026